


Attack The Titan

by ElphieRix



Series: Horrible Coping Mechanisms For The End Of The World [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, But Technically This Is, Canon Compliant Until Avengers 4 Comes Out, Don't Worry This Isn't Really The End, Emetophobia, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Like It's Not Explicit But There's A Battle So It's There, Mid To Mild Gore, Other, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Sort of a fix it, The Story Will Be Continued In The Snapshots, There's Major Character Death But It's More A Major Character In The Films Than In The Fic, There's Not Much But Enough For The Tag, Tony Stark Has A Heart, third in a series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 20:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14880986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElphieRix/pseuds/ElphieRix
Summary: That is still not the worst of it.Valkyrie is more familiar with the boundary between life and death than most, an unwanted relic from the old days, and she knows the look of those who are already gone even as their heart still beats. Tony had that look before the battle even started.That is the worst of it, and Valkyrie feels no shame in preventing Peter from seeing it.-The final battle to defeat Thanos takes its toll.ORVal and Pete's bad day out.Sequel to Flight Of The Commodore and Wakanda Night Is This.





	Attack The Titan

She sees it from a distance, Tony stumbling, scrabbling towards the fallen gauntlet, shoving his hand inside and roaring with pain. Raising his arm and-

 

SNAP.

 

It echoes across the universe.

 

 _He did it he did it he did it he did it he did it,_ repeats Valkyrie to herself. Then an Outrider jumps on her back. By the time she has wrestled it off her and run it through with her sword the Timekeeper has reformed and is fighting like he was never dead. His hands glow orange and she wonders how his magic can be so different to Loki’s. Suddenly someone crashes into her and she nearly takes their head off.

 

It’s the kid. Tony’s kid. He looks at her with wide, scared eyes. He’s so young.

 

“Where’s Mr Stark?” He asks. “What’s happening?”

 

“We’re winning,” she says. “Stick by me Peter. Thanos dies today.”

 

His eyes widen even further when she calls him by name but he nods in agreement. Then a group of Chitauri spots them and he is swinging towards them without hesitation.

 

Valkyrie drives her sword through the first one’s head, only to be hit across the face by the next one. It knocks her down but that leaves her able to duck under its claws and slice across its abdomen, its insides tumbling out like cloth unravelling. The kid is up high, picking up Chitauri and Outriders alike with his webs and tossing them into the air. His face is masked so she can’t tell if he’s alright.

 

“Um, ma’am, what should I call you?” He shouts to her.

 

_Ma’am._

 

“Less talking more killing,” she says, as she dodges an Outrider grasping for her head and stabs it in its side.

 

“Sorry,” he says, dropping down next to her and shooting webs that crackle with electricity at the enemy.

 

“It’s Valkyrie,” she relents, and then there is a spear heading straight for the kid and she lunges for him.

 

It drives through her left shoulder like a hot knife through butter and she screams, but the kid is under her and he’s fine so she grits her teeth and staggers to her feet.

 

The kid retracts his mask, looking stricken.

 

“I’m fine,” she tells him.

 

“No you’re not,” says Loki, appearing behind her and Peter and seizing an arm from each of them.

 

They are transported near to the ships, well away from the battle, and Loki drops their arms. Valkyrie wheels around to face her and the Trickster grins and winks and vanishes.

 

“Bastard!” She screams after her, and falls to her knees.

 

She snaps off the shaft of the spear but the end is still sticking right through her and her shoulder is hot and wet with blood.

 

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” she chants under her breath to cover the pain.

 

“Uh Ms Valkyrie can I help?” Says Peter, hovering awkwardly over her.

 

She leans back on her heels and looks up at him. His forehead is creased in genuine concern and not a little confusion.

 

“Keep me awake,” she says. “Keep me talking.”

 

“Uh, okay. How did you know who I was?”

 

Valkyrie gives a pained grunt and shifts so she is sitting and leaning against the side of one of the ships they travelled here on. Astonishing ships even to an Asgardian, built by Tony and the Wakandan Princess, which took them through space in days where the _Commodore_ would have taken months. The kid sits down next to her and inspects the bright metal covering his hands.

 

“Tony told me about you,” she says when she’s as close to comfortable as she can be.

 

Peter’s head jerks up. “Mr Stark! Where is he? Is he okay? Oh no! He thinks I’m dead! I need to find him!” He says all in one breath, looking around frantically.

 

“I don’t know if Tony’s fine,” says Valkyrie, because it would be cruel to be anything less than honest. “But he knows you’re alright.”

 

“How?” Says Peter, looking torn between staying to watch over her and seeking Tony out.

 

Valkyrie brings the hand of her good arm up to rest on his shoulder. “Because he’s the one who brought you back,” she says softly, squeezing it slightly. She’s still pissed at Loki for taking her away from the fight, but staying here and keeping Tony’s boy safe is more than worthy.

 

“Oh,” he says, and she can feel the way his breath quivers. “I really was dead.”

 

“Afraid so,” she says. “But you got better.”

 

He makes a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh and she tightens her grip on his shoulder, trying to ground him. It’s so quiet here, nothing to indicate that a war for half the universe is being won and lost on this one planet. There is no way of knowing if Thanos still lives. No way to know if the boy will suddenly crumble away under her fingertips. Or if Thanos gets the gauntlet again, if she is the one who will fade.

 

“So how do you know Mr Stark?” Says the kid. He’s doing an impressive job of keeping his voice even but his face betrays his uncertainty and fear. _Of course it does,_ she thinks, _he fights in a mask._ She wonders what to tell him. It’s a long, sad, weird story and she doesn’t believe it will make him feel any better. She can’t have him break down, she is too close to fracturing herself.

 

“I gave him a ride home,” she says and closes her eyes. She’s not going to pass out but it seems to scare the kid.

 

“Your armour is really cool by the way, did you make it? Mr Stark made mine but I designed the webshooters and sometimes he lets me suggest things and help with- Er are you okay?” He says in a rush. “Only you said to keep you awake so I don’t know if I should keep talking or try and find... someone...” He trails off, clearly realising there is no one nearby to be found.

 

“My armour was forged in Nidavellir by King Eitri himself,” she says without opening her eyes. She’s tired but she’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t touch the spear, she can rest her eyes for a bit.

 

“Oh WOW so you’re like Thor,” says Peter.

 

“No one is like Thor kid,” she says.

 

“I guess not. But you’re like, Asgardian, right? What’s it like there? Is it like all all old fashioned and fancy or are there some crappy bits? Do people wear armour all the time? That sounds like a lot of work but people do weird stuff for fashion on Earth as well so I guess that’s pretty normal. Um. I didn’t mean to call your armour weird, I really do think it’s cool, it just looks a little uncomfortable to go like, to the grocery store or something. Oh! Do you even have grocery stores on Asgard?”

 

_Norns the kid can talk._

 

Valkyrie tunes him out and shakes her head slightly. Her thoughts are getting fuzzy and she’s not sure why. She’s had much worse wounds than this and stayed conscious, stayed fighting, so that can’t be the problem. She turns her head to look her shoulder and her vision swims but she can still make out something oily on the blade.

 

“Peter,” she says, interrupting him because amazingly he’s still talking. “I think I’ve been poisoned.”

 

“Oh my god,” he says. “What do I do? How do I help?”

 

“I need you to take out the spear and then keep me from bleeding out until someone comes.” She meets his worried gaze. “It’s alright, but I’m probably going to pass out.”

 

He gulps almost comically.

 

“O-kaaaaaay,” he says reluctantly and reaches for the spear. She closes her eyes in anticipation.

 

“Incredible,” and that’s Loki’s voice. “I leave you right outside a ship with medicine and you decide to just sit here and die.”

 

Valkyrie opens her eyes. Loki is crouched next to her, hand outstretched as if they were about to trail their fingers down her cheek. The kid is staring at them in undisguised fear.

 

“Get her onto the ship,” they say to Peter. “There should be purifiers in the med bay. You have those on Midgard? For poisonings?” They stand and stare imperiously down at the boy. “I will hold you responsible if she dies.”

 

Suddenly they whip their head to the side to stare at something she cannot see, and before she can say anything they disappear.

 

“That was Loki,” says Peter, his voice rising to hysterics. “That was actually Loki. Are they on our side now?”

 

Valkyrie opens her mouth to say “They’re on their own side,” but somehow that doesn’t ring true anymore. “I don’t know whose side they’re on, but Thanos has already killed them once so it’s probably not his,” she says. That’s not entirely right either, but her whole left side is starting to go numb and she thinks about that instead.

 

She is surprised by how quickly Peter gets her to the med bay. Asgardians are heavy but he picks her up with ease, taking care not to jostle the spear still sticking out of her.

 

Peter opens cabinets haphazardly. For some reason they all seem to be full of the outfits healers wear on Midgard and he huffs in frustration. He starts to move towards a set of low cupboards when there’s a crash and the sound of heavy thudding footsteps and he freezes abruptly. The Hulk bursts into the room. He is cradling an unconscious and bloodied Thor with a tenderness Valkyrie didn’t know he possessed. He lays Thor out on a bed and takes a step back.

 

The change is probably one of the oddest things she has ever seen. Of course she’s seen Hulk become Bruce before, and Bruce become Hulk, but that is usually dramatic and violent and contentious. This is calm, and intentional. A slow deliberate shrinking from Hulk to human.

 

Bruce Banner holds his tattered trousers around his waist and blinks at them. “Well that went better than expected,” he says.

 

“You’re Bruce Banner. Dr Bruce Banner. _The_ Dr Bruce Banner,” says the kid, practically vibrating with excitement. “Wow oh my god wow. You changed the way I thought about biohacking! I wouldn’t have even had the idea for my webs without you! I thought it was you back in New York but I wasn’t sure. This is so cool! It’s the weirdest most stressful best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

 

Bruce moves cautiously towards the clothing cabinet. “Thanks..?” He says distractedly, pulling on a pair of dark purple trousers. He squints at Peter. “Sorry kid you know me but I don’t know you?”

 

“Oh! Sorry! I’m Peter, Peter Parker. Er. Spider-Man.”

 

Bruce stops hunting for a top and for the first time gives the kid his full attention. “Tony’s Peter?”

 

“That’s him,” says Valkyrie and Bruce looks at her as if he has just noticed she’s there.

 

“Jesus Val,” he says and hurries over to her to inspect the wound in her shoulder. “Is this poisoned?” He adds accusingly.

 

“Shouldn’t you be tending to the King?” Valkyrie says.

 

“Thor? No, he’s fine. The big guy just panicked when he took that hit.”

 

It had been a very big hit. Nothing Thor couldn’t withstand but he had lost both his newly forged gauntlet and Stormbreaker as a result. Valkyrie could see why the Hulk had been worried.

 

“Speaking of hits, how’d they even manage to lay one on you?” Continues Bruce as he starts to poke at the skin around the spearhead. It has gone a nasty blackish purple colour and Valkyrie tenses in preparation for pain when he touches it. There isn’t any, there isn’t any feeling at all and Bruce looks very concerned.

 

“It’s my fault,” blurts out Peter. “My spidey senses were going off everywhere and I didn’t notice the spear and then she pushed me out of the way even though we’d only just met and you saved my life but I don’t even know why you’d do that!” He looks close to tears.

 

 _Tony said the kid was smart,_ thinks Valkyrie. _Apparently not about some things. Fuck, he’s just like him._

 

“You’re Tony’s Peter,” she says simply, with a shrug of her good shoulder.

 

“Yeah...” says Bruce, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “If he’d brought you back and you still didn’t make it...”

 

He trails off and looks uncomfortably at Valkyrie, both of them thinking the same thing: _Tony wouldn’t survive it._

 

“How is it out there?” She asks as Bruce gathers bandages and other medical supplies she’d be able to identify if her eyesight wasn’t so blurry.

 

“I don’t know,” says the scientist. “Last I saw Tony and Steve were up against Thanos and... I think they were okay.” The last sentence rings blatantly, horribly false.

 

Peter helps Bruce remove the spear from her shoulder and holds her hand as the older man stitches up the wound. She doesn’t need him to but it’s nice all the same.

 

After they are done and she has been given a foul tasting concoction that Bruce calls _anti-toxin_ , she and the kid head back outside. Bruce wants to stay until Thor wakes up, and the softness is his expression as he says it makes it clear that they would be intruding on their reunion when he does. So Valkyrie waits on the ramp of the ship with Peter.

 

They wait.

 

They wait for hours.

 

They wait until finally figures start appearing on the horizon. Valkyrie recognises Nebula among them, covered in dark blood and surrounded by people she supposes are her Guardians. There’s the strange woman who reminds her of Sigrún, the one who showed up unexpectedly mid-battle and changed the tide in their favour. She is flying towards them with a grim expression, carrying two ruined gauntlets.

 

Valkyrie doesn’t see Loki anywhere.

 

She sees people running into the ships and emerging with stretchers, hurrying back towards the battlefield.

 

She sees so many people, both familiar and unfamiliar, laughing and crying and completely drained and emotionless as they stumble away from the war.

 

Valkyrie sees Tony first. Thank fuck Valkyrie sees Tony first. It gives her time to fake dizziness and fall against the kid, slumping in his arms and getting him to take her back to the med bay. The med bay on a different ship to Tony. Peter is good enough not to leave her even though he desperately wants to, and she doesn’t feel any guilt about playing to that.

 

 _Loki would be proud,_ she thinks. It isn’t a particularly nice thought.

 

It’s worth it though. Valkyrie would have done much worse to prevent Peter from seeing Tony. She can’t get the image out of her head. They had carried him to the ships on a stretcher and he was more wound than man. Deep bloody gashes across his whole body, a jagged piece of what looked like Thanos’ own armour sticking out of his abdomen and his arm... His left arm so mangled it looked more like butchered meat than a human limb.

 

That is not the worst of it.

 

For long as she has known him Tony Stark has never been not moving, he is always tinkering or talking, fiddling or fidgeting. Even in is his sleep he twitches. But he had been completely still. So totally still that for the very first time she could see that he is small. Small and behind his metal shell, horribly delicately human. Mortal.

 

That is still not the worst of it.

 

Valkyrie is more familiar with the boundary between life and death than most, an unwanted relic from the old days, and she knows the look of those who are already gone even as their heart still beats. Tony had that look before the battle even started.

 

That is the worst of it, and Valkyrie feels no shame in preventing Peter from seeing it.

 

Their ship is one of the first to leave Titan. Keeping the kid in the med bay and away from Tony means she doesn’t get a chance to properly check the survivors before they go. Thor and Bruce are with her, and she saw Nebula from a distance, but Tony may well be dead before they reach Midgard and Loki is conspicuous in their absence. She thinks of the expression on their face just before they vanished. They’d turned to look at something and they were afraid and Valkyrie won’t morn them again. She can’t.

 

The trip to Earth is just thirty nine hours in these new ships and Valkyrie manages to convince Peter to sleep. She guilts him by saying she won’t be able to rest until he does, and she’s been wounded so she really does need to rest. He is too dazed and exhausted by everything to realise she is manipulating him.

 

She doesn’t sleep.

 

The atmosphere on the ship is suffocating, like a powder keg just waiting for someone to strike a match. No one can work out if they should be jubilant or in mourning. They are lucky, they count no dead on board but there are others in the fleet not so untouched. Even Thor is subdued. He has not let go of Bruce’s hand since he woke up, and the glances traded between them are of a private kind. Valkyrie wishes seeing them didn’t make her sick to the stomach with worry for Loki.

 

 _When we land, when I see them,_ she thinks, _I’m going to have to do something about this._

 

Their timing is horrible. The ramp lowers just as Tony is being wheeled in front of the ship. Valkyrie is exposed to a lot of information all at once. First there is Peter stiffening with shock beside her. The horrified wail he makes. Then there is Loki, looking bruised and bone-weary but otherwise unharmed, walking next to Tony and casting some kind of healing magic on him. And there’s Pepper.

 

_Oh Hel, Pepper._

 

She comes running towards the ships, running towards Tony, and the look on her face might just be worse than the old emptiness in Tony’s eyes.

 

It’s a lot. Too much. All the hours she has been awake suddenly crash down on Valkyrie’s head and she is falling. Crumpling where she stands like the towers of Asgard under Surtur’s fists. She is asleep before she hits the ground.

 

Loki is there when she wakes. She comes gasping back into consciousness in their tent and she is dimly aware of a hand leaving her own before she is retching and throwing up on their shoes. Their nose wrinkles in disgust.

 

“Please don’t do that again,” they say.

 

Valkyrie is probably going to do that again. ”Do you have a bowl or-“ she starts.

 

“No,” says Loki, gesturing to her shoulder. “That.”

 

“Oh,” she says. She moves into a sitting position and they don’t stop her. “No promises. I really do need something to be sick in though.”

 

Loki sighs and conjures a bucket. Valkyrie accepts it then regards them thoughtfully.

 

“You were helping Tony,” she says.

 

Instead of answering Loki concentrates on the mess at their feet. They magic her vomit away in a flash of green then focus resolutely on the floor.

 

“Why?” Says Valkyrie.

 

“He’s a good man.”

 

“You don’t give a shit about that,” she says. “Try again.”

 

Loki’s head jerks up and she is pinned under their gaze. It’s intense. “You would have been unhappy if he died,” they hiss, angry at being forced into the admission.

 

Valkyrie nods. “I would kiss you, but I’m going to throw up again,” she says.

 

Loki looks stunned. As if this thing building between them hasn’t been obvious for months. _Maybe to Loki it hasn’t,_ she thinks.

 

“Later then,” they whisper and their face is soft instead of sharp and they smile almost shyly.

 

“Later,” she agrees, and promptly vomits again.

 

Time moves on, as time always does.

 

Tony’s condition stabilises but he remains asleep and his Pepper arranges for him to be moved to a hospital in New York. She is starting to show.

 

Loki and the other scholars discover records of an old Asgardian settlement in a place called Norway. It was abandoned aeons ago in the time of King Bor but still stands. Thor makes arrangements to move the refugees there and just like that New Asgard is born.

 

Memorials are built for the many, many dead, all across the world. Thor and Bruce attend every service but Valkyrie goes to only one and has had her fill. The names of the dead Avengers are emblazoned at the centre of the monument. There is a space at the very top, just above _Steven Grant Rogers_ , where the words _Anthony Edward Stark_ are meant to fit.

 

Nebula leaves. Of course she does. The Guardians have uncovered the smallest, wildest chance that their Gamora might be retrievable. So Nebula leaves. Valkyrie doesn’t asks her to stay and the other woman doesn’t ask her to come with them. So that’s that.

 

They hug and it’s odd but also nice and Nebula turns to go and she can’t stop herself from saying: “You’ll always have a home in New Asgard if you want it.”

 

Nebula thanks her, and leaves.

 

Valkyrie makes a decision.

 

“Brunnhilde,” she says to Loki one day. The two of them are clearing out a drain in New Asgard and it is hard dirty work so she can talk about these things.

 

“What?” Says Loki.

 

“My name is actually Brunnhilde.”

 

“I know,” he says. “You’re in the history books. Why are you telling me now?”

 

“I don’t know,” says Valkyrie. “You can call me that if you’d like.”

 

Loki stops his work and turns to give her his full attention. “Do you actually want me to call you that or are you just telling me because you think you should?”

 

Valkyrie thinks. She really doesn’t know. She hasn’t been Brunnhilde for thousands of years. She hasn’t been Scrapper 142 in months but somehow that seems even further away.

 

“I guess I’m Valkyrie then,” she says, and that does feel right. The old and the new.

 

She looks at Loki. He’s grinning widely at her. She looks at Loki. Even though they’re both grimy and sweaty and they might actually smell she reaches for him. They kiss for the first time still standing in the drain. Neither of them mind.

 

There are still nightmares. It is good to have someone beside her when she wakes but there is a pain in her shoulder that doesn’t leave even after it’s healed and sometimes Loki wakes screaming too. Sometimes it still feels like the world is holding its breath for the next catastrophe. They do their best with what they have. Their best is good enough.

 

Loki is still an arsehole. It’s almost comforting that so many things have changed but that remains constant. She loves them anyway.

 

Time moves on, as time always does.

 

Then, finally-

 

Finally.

 

Finally.

 

Almost four months after the fall of the Titan.

 

After 117 days.

 

Finally.

 

Tony wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> HAhahahaaAAAhhaa. I'm finally finished wrestling with this beast. God. Fuck me.
> 
> There will be more! I've already got a few post-this chapters of Snapshots written so that's coming. Although to warn you the angst train hasn't left the station quite yet. But the fluff will come. There will be the Tony and Peter reunion that I denied you in this. I'm not a monster that will happen. I just haven't written it yet.
> 
> Ummm I had a lot to say but as I'm writing this I've forgotten like all of it.
> 
> OH! The conversation Loki and Valkyrie have about her name was actually something I planned from the beginning. Some parts of this story snuck up on me but I always wanted that to happen between them.
> 
> Erm... blah, blah, no beta...
> 
> Sorry for killing Steve I guess? The Snapshots will get more into that, as well as who else died on Titan.
> 
> Yeah. I hope you liked it.
> 
> My tumblr is http://elphierix.tumblr.com/ so you can come scream at me about this on there if you want.


End file.
